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MIDDLE EAST | Update from regional conflicts:

• Participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla – an international group of some 50 civilian boats trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza despite Israel's naval blockade of the Palestinian enclave – say their vessels were attacked by 12 drones in international waters off the coast of Greece overnight. Reports note that Italy has dispatched a naval ship for "possible rescue operations" at the flotilla's location. [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 1,308 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• In a shift from his previous statements, U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday that he believes that Ukraine, with NATO and European help, can take back all if its territory lost to Russia. The comment followed a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. [more]
• Russia's finance ministry has reportedly proposed raising the value-added tax rate in Russia from 20% to 22% in 2026 to help fund military spending amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine. [more]

U.S. GUN VIOLENCE | Authorities say at least one person was killed, and two others were injured, in a shooting incident this morning at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas, Texas. Dallas police say preliminary indications are that the suspect in the case, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene, opened fire at a government building from an adjacent building. Early reports say the three people shot were detainees being led into the facility. [more]

U.S. FEDERAL FUNDING | In a social media post yesterday, President Donald Trump said he is cancelling this week's planned meeting with congressional Democratic leaders to discuss their health care funding demands ahead of the September 30 government funding deadline. Trump said that "no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive," while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested the president "is running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there." [more]

U.S. MILITARY | Pentagon officials said yesterday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has disbanded the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, saying the committee, which was created in 1951 to advise on the "recruitment, retention, employment, integration, well-being, and treatment of women" in the military, was "focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness." [more]

ARIZONA | Democrat Adelita Grijalva won the special election in Arizona's 7th Congressional District yesterday, defeating Republican candidate Daniel Butierez. Grijalva will succeed her father, the late U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who represented the state for more than two decades in Congress. [more]

U.S. AND UNITED NATIONS | Among comments made by U.S. President Donald Trump before the U.N. General Assembly yesterday were: that climate change is the "greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world;" that renewable sources of energy such as wind power are a "joke;" that the U.N. is failing to live up to its potential; and that countries with what he calls  open border policies are "going to hell." [full address: text | video] [more]

U.S., COLOMBIA, AND VENEZUELA | Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly yesterday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for a criminal investigation into U.S. President Donald Trump and other officials involved in recent deadly military strikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea that the White House has said were Venezuelan vessels transporting drugs. [more]

IRAN | The Associated Press reports that satellite imagery indicates Iran has begun rebuilding missile-production sites targeted by Israel during its 12-day war in June but that the sites appear to be missing the large mixers needed to produce solid fuel for the weapons. [more]

TYPHOON RAGASA | At least 25 deaths in Taiwan and the Philippines have been associated with Typhoon Ragasa, which weakened today after making landfall in China's Guangdong province, where an estimated 1.9 million people were relocated to safe locations ahead of the storm's arrival. [more]

CHINA | The Chinese Commerce Ministry said today that, in a move aimed at boosting the global trading system amidst tariff wars and protectionist moves by individual countries, China will no longer seek the benefits of special treatment given to countries with developing-country status in World Trade Organization agreements – a move long-supported by the U.S. and other major economies. [more]

SAUDI ARABIA | State media reports that Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, who served as the kingdom’s top religious figure since 1999, died yesterday. [more]

U.K. | British authorities say police arrested a man today in connection with the recent ransomware attack against Collins Aerospace that disrupted check-in systems at multiple European airports, affecting tens of thousands of travelers. [more]

BASEBALL | Major League Baseball’s 11-member competition committee yesterday approved the incorporation of robotic umpiring into league play starting next year. Human plate umpires will still call balls and strikes, but teams will be able to challenge two calls per game with appeals to robotic reviews, which will be shown graphically on outfield videoboards. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1906, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt declared Devils Tower – a butte in the Black Hills of northeastern Wyoming – the first national monument in the United States.  [more history]